


The Original Sin

by SandrC



Series: Eldritch-tober 2020 [11]
Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Doodler!Henry, Eldritch Horrors, Oakvale Bad End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27002053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: In the Garden of Eden sat the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.And there, lying in wait, is a Serpent.
Series: Eldritch-tober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950820
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	The Original Sin

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 11: Damned
> 
> Originally it was gonna be about Autumn but then I looked back at Be Not Afraid and went "hm, I can do more there and that's fun" and then I did.
> 
> I just...as a small adhd child forced to attend Baptist services with my grandparents, I read the bible for fun. I like the imagery at least. It's good set dressing.

"Take a bite from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge," the Serpent said, "and Know what it is that He does not wish for you to know. Learn what God will not share. If He is forgiving," it simpered, "then surely He will not mind." And Eve partook and Knew and Adam followed suit and the first sin was committed.

Darryl felt like facing down the Serpent of Eden would be a less daunting task. Perhaps _this_ was a manifestation of the Original Sin, this broken thing that his friend had become. Twisted and gnarled, plant-like—if plants had emotions and hatred and begged to be seen and _don't you **dare** look at me, **not** like this, **please** , not like **this**_ —but also brokenly _human_. Or...human until it _wasn't_.

If Darryl hadn't seen the thing rip itself from Henry's veins, wrapping the man in vines of blood and viscera and shadows and _something_ that felt like what nightmares _might_ look like if you made blood a hole in space and time and emotion and then told it to give you a headache if you stared at it too long, then he wouldn't think it had _ever_ been human. Long limbs that bent wrong, eyes on _eyes_ on **_eyes_** , wings and _wings_ and **_wings_** with no feathers but that lifted it above the ground, a halo that was a void that gave off light and consumed the breath in everyone's lungs. It was antithetical to human. It was broken and breaking and _terrifying_.

There is a reason the angels said "be not afraid." There is a reason Henry had been _terrified_ of the anger in him. There is a reason his mother, Autumn, stared on at the gore-splattered prison she had once called home with no emotion on her face save grim acceptance.

_"There is something **wrong** with this family," she said, grasping Henry's hands in hers. Panic painted her features then; varicose veins visible through paper skin, shaking hands clutching knitting needles like daggers._

Darryl had thought she had been _joking_. Over-exaggerating. That her time in Oakvale had ruined her view of her son and their family.

As he watches the thing that turned Henry inside out _consume_ his father—as he watches _this abomination_ paint Oakvale in gore, swatting the Ri'Oak homunculi left and right with no effort or care, breaking them into meaty wet chunks of mud and person—he knows she's _right_. There's something _horribly wrong_ with their family.

But it's not _their_ fault. And they can _try_ and fix it.

Assuming he can get his legs to move first.

Pinned in place, prey under the snakelike gaze of this thing and is _many eyes_ and its _many emotions_ and he can't _he can't **he can't—**_

All it took was to give in, to accept the whispers, for Eve to be tempted and for her to tempt in kind.

 _Who_ was the Serpent? _What_ was Eden? Who was _Adam_ and who was _Eve_?

Who was _complicit_?

_How could he help?_

_Could_ he help?

He cannot move and the thing that was once Henry— _might_ be Henry—maybe Henry _never_ _existed_ , only a vessel for this thing to walk among others in a way that didn't scare them into fleeing, a wolf in sheep's wool—steps ever closer but _he cannot move_.

Pinned under its gaze, its claw, beneath the oppressive atmosphere it carries with it, Daryl can only pray.


End file.
